


Cute One Shots from the Man who Sold the World

by Pandigital



Series: The man who sold the world [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: BAMF Cassandra, Cullen Has Issues, Dragon Dorian, Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, Gen, Hardened Leliana, Helpful Cole (Dragon Age), Josephine is a saint, Protective Iron Bull, Sera Being Sera, Solas is a grumpy old man, Team as Family, Varric Tethras is a Good Friend, Viviene is a lady, Warden Blackwall is a good man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:12:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6466273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandigital/pseuds/Pandigital
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vivienne had never had to be anything but a Lady. A role model to tiny Herald is a new role she is happy to try. Warden Blackwall just wanted to be a good man for once in his life. Sera was always going to be Sera, and there was nothing wrong with that. Leliana knows she has cracks in her shell. Josephine was the oldest child of many, she was an old hand at making a child smile. Solas doesn't regret why he did what he did, but he regrets that his actions made so many suffer.  Cole just wants to help. Varric is glad he is the "cool uncle" not "dad". Cullen liked being needed. Cassandra and Iron Bull are ready to kick your ass if make their small child cry. Dorian doesn't know how he could love someone so much, it would explain how he got roped into being a caretaker for a child. Abelas doesn't know how she got her odd new clan to stick together like it did. But she loved them all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lady of the Court, Vivienne

Vivienne had never had to watch over a child before. She was a mage raised in a circle. She had never found others her own age to be very interesting, and as a young woman she had worked hard to become powerful, making friendships where they were needed. She had taken every precaution to insure that she would never have a child who might be taken from her or to be shunned for being born out of wedlock. Therefore, when Maraas asks, softly and nervous(or as nervous as a woman who knows herself can be, for which Vivienne respects her) if she would mind watching Abelas for a few hours. Vivienne doesn’t. Abelas is a child of few words and soft actions.

Alexius is a good example. Dorian had not sugar coated who Alexius was before The Breach and his actions against the girl had not sugar coated whom he turned into. Abelas is a well behaved child, seldom prone to fits and yelling. She is content to sit and listen. Like an owl. Watching and waiting for the right time to strike. She had not killed Alexis, but she had not freed him either. 

Working for her in a small room, guarded by four very well trained Templar at all times. She had taken a wild thing and clamped him into a collar and a short chain in a well kept cage. Vivienne can respect the girls choice. But when Maraas asks, Vivienne wants to know why. Her answer is simple enough. She wants alone time with Cullen, her Templar lover. Carnal pleasure can’t be given when tiny eyes and ears are always near by. 

Vivienne wonders after Damien and Orta. Maraas smirks and says that Dorian and Bull had dragged him away on a trip. Orta and Sera were on some errand for Red Jenny. Vivienne agrees. Abelas is given her to after breakfast the following day. Abelas smiles and follows after her, two steps to her left, and three steps behind. She is happy enough to sit in the sun on the balcony and play with her wooden soldiers that Blackwall had made for her. 

She plays at war in silent mutters while Vivienne makes health and mana potions. She feels eyes watching her and she glances at the child out of the corner of her eye. She is watching with wide eyes as her hands pinch, grind and mix in leaves to the pot. She says nothing, but her eyes are wide in wonder. Vivienne doesn’t turn her head when she says, “Darling, do be a dear for me and bring me that bucket please. This batch must cool.” The girl does as she is told and she holds the bucket, her face coloring with the effort to hold it tight. 

She does and Vivienne helps her to set down in the shade. Her wooden army lies forgotten but ready in the sun. Vivienne takes the stool she uses to hold vases of flowers and places it next to her. She tells Abelas she may help and the girl smiles wide at the idea. She is a mage, young and not fully aware of it, but she will grow into a mage of great power. She needs to at least learn some kind of trade if she will never use her magic. Or she may never be anything but a holy symbol for both her people and those who follow the faith of Andraste.

She might forever sit in that golden throne with the sun behind her, a crown of power on her head that holds just as much weight as a real piece of metal. Josephine already dreads the thought of her having enough people and having so many loyal to her. She fears the girl will make a nation by kindness and understanding. A country won and kept with not a drop of blood shed to earn it. A marvel of an idea. Vivienne knows that whoever the girl thinks to be fit enough to be the next Divine and places her support behind, will let her have a nation. Vivienne would at least.

Abelas strikes her as the girl who is meek and kind as a child, and soon grows up into a woman whom is willing to listen and trade, to be reasonable in all things, but will not tolerate any who try to harm those she rules over. If Vivienne was Divine, she would give the girl the right to rule. Abelas would grow into an old woman that would not budge on her beliefs. Vivienne could respect woman like that. Abelas listens to her. When lunch comes, the liquids are kept in the shade to cool and they eat at the small table she has. Abelas sits in her chair, little legs and feet swinging from being so high up.

Vivienne teaches her how to sip tea in a lady like manner. Abelas holds everything with two hands. Too tiny to hold anything with one. Vivienne has small cups though. One should never eat a large lunch when dinner and its many courses are soon to be served. Children need much to eat though and so Vivienne says nothing when she eats three small finger sandwiches and two little cakes. It is at this hour of the day when an Orlesian pomp comes calling, a rudely at that. 

He is curt and rude and tells Abelas to be silent when she sets her teacup down little more harshly than what is proper. She is learning and Vivienne forgives her for the small mistake. It is hardly even worth notice. But is Abelas who jumps to her defense in the conversation. 

“I will not be ignored, Lady of Iron.” he spits. 

She raises an eyebrow at him, “I am not prone to ignoring people, my dear. But when I do, it is because your request is either out of power to grant. Or your request is not only ignorant to be asked of a lady but also something I will not do. Magic, as you well know, exist to serve man, not to rule over him. However, that being said, magic is there to aid man in his war to better himself. Not make a fool of other men he is too weak to outsmart in The Great Game.” 

The man scowls at her, his mask catching the light of the high afternoon sun and shining into her eyes. She doesn’t even flinch when it hits her eyes, nor does she raise her hand. She keeps them folded in her lap, legs crossed. Abelas looks between them. The man snaps at her, “You will help me, you-you-you...YOU apostate whore!” 

Abelas jumps to her feet, barefoot and tiny on the plush cushion of the chair and smacks the man so hard his mask almost comes off. He stumbles back, face twisted in shock. Abelas looks bigger than she is, anger and power curling around her like a thunder cloud. Vivienne watches. Abelas shakes in her fury, “TAKE THAT BACK!” 

“I will not take back what is the truth.” 

“I SAID TAKE IT BACK!” 

“And if I don’t?” He asks, a smirk on his face. He forgets his place. Abelas looks ready to cry. She jumps from the chair and goes to the balcony that overlooks her grand hall. Her throne in plain view and just a imposing from this height. She grabs the guard rails, hauls herself up and onto to her stomach, feet swinging. Vivienne sips her tea. The Templar are Cullens men, loyal and true and never one to ignore their tiny lady Herald. They are always everywhere, along with the mages she saved. She yells down at them and they back. 

“Knight Misho! Knight White!” She yells, angry and her voice cracking. Their voices yell back up, loud and wondering what has made her so angry. 

“Yes, my lady Herald?” 

“Come here please!” 

Vivienne can hear their armor coming up the stairs. Both men are large, some of the largest men that Cullen commands. They take up what little room is left in her space. Abelas marches over to them and they bow to her. She bows back and then turns to the noble and snaps, “Tell them what you said.” 

“I spoke the truth.”

The Templar do not look happy. One reaches for his sword and the noble takes a step back but also tries to make himself look bigger, puffing out his chest. 

“Tell them what you said about Miss Vivienne! It was mean and rude you can’t talk to people like that!” Abelas stamps her foot as if to prove her point. 

The Templar, she has seen him before, he looks much like her, but his hair is combed and tied up and away from his face. Knight White, she recalls, looks at her, “Was this man rude to you, Madame?” 

“I was no such thing.” The noble protest. 

White turns to look at Mishio who looks at him, his tone is light and casual, “What do you think, Hideki? If we take him to see that Grey Warden about those pigs, do you think anyone would miss us for a few hours?” 

Hideki scoffs, “The Lady Herald told us to show this man around. To meet The Grey Warden Blackwall. It would be an act against The Maker to deny his bride's chosen one.” 

“Unless he is busy.” 

Abelas looks at them as though she is confused. Vivienne knows she is, but she is like Cullen in one single act. She puffs out her small chest and glares at the noble with all she is worth. The Templar behind her do not move, their swords glint dangerously in the sunlight. She says each word clearly and calmly, “Tell Miss Vivienne you’re sorry. Or I’ll make you sorry.” 

“You think you scare me?” But their is no bravery in those words. 

“I can make you disappear. I can make you sorry. I can tell my Tama and my  _ baba  _ what you did and they can make sure you don’t ever see the sun again.” 

The noble pales under his mask, “I will not tell her anything. She knows I speak the truth.” 

“I didn’t realize,” Vivienne says as she refills her tea cup, “that having the audacity to raise one's status was akin to selling one's body for coin. If that is the case, then you, sir, are a bigger whore than I am. Half the court is, by that logic.” 

The Templar, White chuckles, “What do whores cost now? Two or three coins?” 

“Four.” Hideki answers. 

“Maybe we should let him see how hard those woman have to work for such little coin.” 

“The Commander would agree.” 

“His Lady would too.” 

Abelas folds her arms, “Say you’re sorry.” 

“I won’t.” 

Abelas goes back to her chair and sits in it, “Knight White and Moshio, please escort this man to see Warden Blackwall. And when you can, inform my  _ baba  _ that he is in the wrong.” 

“My lady. Madame.” They say and take him away. He fights them every step of the way. Abelas doesn’t meet her eyes. 

“Thank you, darling.” 

“It was the right thing to do.” 

“I suppose. I will speak to Josephine and Leliana. They will make this all better. Now, drink your tea before it becomes too cold to drink and enjoy.” 

Abelas only smiles at her and extends her pinky finger as she sips. A lady by title if not blood. Vivienne smiles behind her tea cup.


	2. Warden Blackwall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A good man.

The shopkeeper was selling walnuts. It was a good price, and a whole bag was given for each one coin traded. Abelas was struggling to open one. She was using her back teeth to try and crack one open. Bull was cracking them open with one swift crunch of his fist. Damine and Dorian had left in a flurry and flutter of robes. They couldn’t eat nuts, it made them ill. 

Bull had cracked a dirty joke and Sera had almost choked on her handful of walnut. They had all taken a seat on the outside of the sparring ring. It wasn’t often that Cullen would take off his shirt and armor to go hand to hand with anyone, but he did so for Maraas without a second thought. It was fun to watch a man who was easily six feet get slapped around like a doll by a woman who stood at least a foot taller than him, if not two. Abelas liked to watched just so she could cheer them both on. It was funny because Cullen needed the support more so than Maraas. Blackwall popped his walnut into his mouth and took the shell from her. 

She gave a low cry of anger at being made to give up her snack but settled when he cracked the nut open for her to eat. She thanked him and the match started. They watched as he cracked open a nut for her and then one for himself. The match was even. Cullen had improved. Varric chuckled a few people down from him. 

“Ten royals says she flips him.” He said outloud, waving an open betting book. A few called out their bets. He gave a low snort and handed another nut to Abelas who chewed it lightly. 

“I’ll take that bet.” He called out. Abelas shot her hand up.

“I think my  _ baba  _ will win, this time!” The small crowd of soldiers laughed at this. Cullen shot them a look and then ducked under a fist that had been flying toward his face. Abelas had always picked Cullen to win, despite the fact that Maraas always laid him low at her feet. Cullen seemed to thrive off of the childish love freely given to him. It was therefore a shock when he did, in fact win. Abelas jumped up, mouth full of walnut and gave a whoop of joy. 

And then choked, her little hands going around her throat. He picked her up and slapped her on her back as hard as he could, letting her head dangle. She gagged and coughed. Maraas and Cullen had both run over, hands fluttering as he tried to get her to spit out the nut she had inhaled. He slapped her so hard she puked. But she was alive and his boots smelled like walnuts. He handed her to Maraas who wiped her red face with a wet rag, cooing at her. 

Cullen rubbed her back. She wiped her eyes of tear and then looked right at him, “Thank you!” She smiled at him, “You saved me!” 

Cullen clapped him on the shoulder, “You’re a good man, Warden Blackwall.” 

As he was lead to the Iron Throne, the place where Abelas sat to judge the guilty, he clung to this memory of being a good man. As he stopped he looked up and she was sitting there. A little blue dress with white lace ruffles, her hair pulled into a braid. She looked ready to cry, her lower lip was shaking so much. Cullen wouldn’t look at him and Maraas just glared. He clung to that memory of being a good man. 


	3. Compassion is for the strong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cole wanted to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a flashback to when Abelas is first introduced to the reader. They are flashbacks because she is thinking about them. There is the only dialogue in this chapter. Cole and Abelas say nothing in current time.

Cole always heard the voices people had on the inside. Those voices were sometimes easier to listen to than the ones that would come out of their mouths. Their mouths knew how to lie. Their brain didn’t, it made it easier to help the hurt. This hurt was new though. Abelas had many hurts. She didn’t remember many of them, but the wounds had scabbed and scarred over in her mind. 

The hurt had died the moment it had been born, but it was sleeping. Like the Dread Wolf. She often thought about that story that scared her.  _ Fen’harel lies dead, dreaming, in his lost city.  _ She liked the one Cullen would tell her about the toy who was so loved it became real. Really real. He was real. 

He was loved. Had been loved. Abelas was loved. And then she wasn’t and then was. She loved him. He wondered if people could see them. The chains on top of each other.

Old chains, new chains. Rusted chains, chains pulled tight by old words and some slack but strong. He wondered if people could see the chains that bound them to others. Abelas had cast her chains far, and they were heavy. Not so heavy as to be slave chains. Light as air and bright as the sun. It hurt to look at the chains she had used to bind her family to her.

He had one from her, wrapped lightly as a feather and feeling like spider silk on his fingers, around his wrist and up to his shoulder. The old Cole had lost his chains. Rhys and Evangeline had given him chains too. They were around his chest. Abelas had many chains, old and dark and cruel. They were around her heart but her light kept them from snapping her apart. He didn’t like those chains. 

But she had feared another set of chains. Real chains that would weigh her down. Many elves feared those chains. Slavers held little love for anything but money. And the demons had taunted those who had lived with how easy it was to track their clan mates. The hurt is so loud in her head as she makes a crown of sunflowers. 

_ “We should start back,” Feyras urged as the wood began to grow dark around them, “The shemlen are dead.”  _

_ “Do the dead frighten you?” Zatriel asked with a hint of a smile on his pale face.  _

_ Feyras did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the mages come and go, “Dead is dead,” he said. “We have no business with the dead.”  _

_ “Are they dead?” Zatriel asked softly. “What proof do we have for our Keeper and our clan mates waiting for us?”  _

_ “Ashihari saw them,” Feyras said. “If she says they are dead, that’s proof enough for me. And it should be proof enough for you. You, who will take the place of the Keeper. My wife. And the mother of Ashihari.”  _

She made the flower crowns for those who would never wear them, except in the Fade. But the Fade didn’t like flowers. They were too bright and happy. The Fade had changed and it was no longer a safe place to grow flowers. It was no longer a safe place. The hole was too big, too loud and bright and too much of everything. Abelas understood, in a way. 

The her that wasn’t her but also a part of her, the heart of the black chains, it understood very well. Cole did not like the heart of the black chains. It was too familiar, the song it sung echoed too loudly and too lovely to him. It sounded like home, or an old friend. The voice had know the real Cole and it had known him too. It knew too many things, like Solas. Only it was an angry knowledge. 

A wicked knowledge. It hated everyone. But it also loved them too, in a way that was very bad. It loved when they didn’t breath. He had a name for it, but he didn’t want to say it outloud. The voice might try to look too closely at him again. Try to put him in chains again. It ate spirits like him because it didn’t know how to help. 

It only knew how to take. Abelas liked to help. She understood. The voice inside didn’t. The voice inside wasn’t like her. 

_ “My own mother said the same thing, Ashihari.” Zatriel replied. “Never believe anything you hear at a woman’s tit. There are things to be learned even from the dead.” His voice echoed too loud in the twilit forest. His mother had been a city elf who had ran to clan Lavellan after she had slept with a human noble and found herself heavy with child.  _

_ “We have a long ride before us,” Feyras pointed out, “Eight days, maybe nine. And night is falling. The clan needs to know if the shem are close to our final southern camp or not. They can’t know about our most sacred place. They have taken too much from us.”  _

_ Zatriel glanced at the sky with disinterest. “It does that everyday around this time, old man. Are you unmanned by the dark? I think you have listened to one too many stories from our Keeper about the monster who lurk in the shadows. The demons live on the other side of the Veil. And the Veil is still up. And unless a portal opens up to let them out, I doubt we have much to fear aside from shem and slavers.”  _

Cole had tried to help her before, but she didn’t remember the hurt, so there was nothing for her to forget. But the hurt was there. Cole wanted to untangle the hurt but she didn’t even understand why she was hurting. She understood that her clan was gone. She understood death. But she didn’t understand why they had to die. Why did the demons come for her clan? 

Because they stole their faces and their lives? She missed them but she loved her new clan. The old clan was still there. Cole didn’t know how to make this hurt go away. He had tried to make her talk about it by asking questions but she had started crying. Cullen had been angry. A father's anger at the tears his child was letting out. 

Maraas had been like a mother was suppose to be, but she also knew why he was asking so many questions. It was like with Dorian. The hurt was made of love, the love was made of hurt. Until the person who was hurting was ready to let go of that pain, the love would hold on tightly to that hurt. There was no way to pull them apart. She would understand better when she was older. He hoped that she would anyway. 

He wanted to help heal the hurt. 

_ “The Keeper said to track the slavers and make sure that they do not follow our path to our last holy site here in the south before we go to the Free Marches. They’re dead. They won’t trouble us anymore. There’s hard riding before us. I don’t like this weather. If it snows, we could be a long while from getting back, and snow is the least of our worries. You have never had to brave an ice storm while in the city, but we have never had the luxury of high walls.”  _

_ The mage seemed not to hear him. He studied the deepening twilight in that way he did. Half angry and half bored. He looked over his shoulder at Ashihari, “Tell me again what you saw. All the details. Leave nothing out.”  _

_ Ashihari gave a sigh and rolled her blue eyes at his turned back. She looked at her father and he did the same thing. She told him, once more, what she had seen, “The camp is two miles farther on, over that ridge, hidden behind the stream and the thick trees. I got as close as I dared to those slavers. There’s eight of them, men and women both. No one is the cages though. They put up a lean-to against the rocks.  _

_ “The early snow’s covered it though, but I could see it since they used the black wood instead of the earthy toned wood. No fire burning, but I saw the fire pit in the middle of camp. No one was moving. I watched for a long time before I came back. Nothing alive or from this world ever lay so still in the cold.”  _

_ “Did you see any blood? A sign of a struggle?”  _

_ “No.” Ashihari admitted.  _

_ “Did you see any weapons?”  _

_ “Some swords, a few boes. One man had a staff. Heavy looking, with a double dragon head, it looked like a cruel piece of iron. It was on the ground beside him, right by his hand.”  _

_ “Where are most of them?”  _

_ Ashihari narrowed her eyes at Zatriel, she had told him this less than an hour ago and three days before that, “A couple are sitting up against the rocks. Most of them were on the ground like someone dropped them to the ground. Fallen. Like a child's doll.”  _

_ “Or sleeping.” Zatriel suggested with a put upon sigh.  _

_ “Fallen,” Ashihari insisted, “There’s one sitting high up in an ironbark tree. A watchmen. Far eyed. I made sure to stay out of her line of sight. Thought she saw me a few times. But then I got closer and she wasn’t moving either.” Despite herself, she shivered.  _

_ Frost fallen leaves whispered past them. “What do you think might have killed them, Feyras?” Zatriel asked casually. He adjusted the drape of his cloak.  _

_ “It was the cold,” Feyras said with iron certainty. “I saw men freeze last winter, and the one before that. Everyone talks about snows forty foot deep, and how the icy winds come to steal your breath away. But the real enemy is the cold. It sneaks up on you quieter than Ashihari, and at first you shiver and your teeth chatter and you stamp your feet for hours. Then you start to daydream of warm wine, warmer bodies and hot fires. It burns, the cold, it burns worse than fire. But only for a while. Then it slinks inside of you and starts to fill you up until there isn’t anything left.  _

_ “After a while, you stop trying to fight the cold, boy. It’s easier to just sit down where you can and go the fuck to sleep. They say you don’t feel any pain toward the end. Weak and drowsy, then everything blurs and fades, and then you’re gone.”  _

She remembered the cold of the mountain. The cold of trying to find them. The cold of long nights. She remembered the wolves most of all. He sat next to her as she tied the last of the flowers together. She looked at him with shock and then smiled at him. He took off his hat and wore a crown of flowers instead. The bees liked his crown. Abelas liked his crown. The hurt slipped away, soft and silent and slept. It would come back soon, but for now, it was gone. He had helped, if only a little. 


	4. Jenny darling, you're my best friend.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sera is Sera and that was never going to change.

“Alright, now just hold this while I tie a knot off, yeah?” 

“Can I ask a question?”

“Sure.” 

“Why are we doing this?” 

Sera looked at Abelas, “Really? We’re doin’ this ‘cause it’ll be right hilarious it will be. The look of her face when all this water hits her will be classic!” 

“But...won’t she be mad?” Abelas asked as Sera finished the knot and put the bucket of water over the semi open door away, one of the many, that lead in the clean and warm office of Josephine. Sera rubbed at her face with both hands and then dragged Abelas off to do another prank, explaining as she went. 

“She’ll be mad but it’ll make everyone else laugh for a little bit. Then Josie-posie will laugh because it just water, yeah? Water never hurt no one.” 

They went up the stairs to where the ravens were. They watched them as they walked around. Leliana wasn’t here and Sera smiled as she looked around for something to make a good prank with. Dorian, Bull, and Damien had gone with Orta into town, the only one in the library with them was Solas. He had been taking a nap when they had walked by. 

Abelas pointed to a very large chest with a mean looking lock on it, “What do you think is in here?” 

Sera turned and looked and then shook her head, “That’s private stuff in there. I don’t want any of her stuff and secrets. We could...hmm.” 

“What about the birds?” 

“Yeah. YEAH. We could make them...wait, no. Bird don’t part.”

“Huh?” 

“The noise your bum makes when air comes out of it.” 

Abelas let out a large laugh and then slapped her hands over her mouth. From down below Solas called up, “Who’s there?”

Sera made a shushing motion and Abelas nodded her head, answering as she poked her head between the bannisters to look down at Solas, “It’s me!” 

He looked up at her, eyes narrowed and then seemed to look around, before nodding, a faint smile on his face, “Well then, carry on.” 

Sera smacked herself in the head and dragged Abelas off. As they got close to Cullen office she heard breathy moans and marched them instead toward Blackwall. Abelas went where Sera pushed her to go. As they went back to the Tavern, Sera shared her cookies with her and they sat out on the roof. When Josephine came storming down the steps, makeup running and clothing shrinking as she flew down the steps, calling for Sera. Abelas almost choked on her cookie and Sera fell off the roof and onto Dorian as he, Damien and Bull were going into the Tavern. Abelas laughed so hard that she fell back onto the roof, her little feet kicking in the air. 

Damien looked up and gave a cry of fright, running to to grab her from the roof. Josephine wasn’t too mad. 


	5. Bull, there is no such thing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had word for what Abelas was under The Qun. It wasn't a clear meaning but it was a meaning none the less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am Asexual. To be more detailed, I am known as an Aromantic Asexual. I don't want love or realtionships or stuff like that. I will be your friend and that is all. This is not say I don't think love stories aren't sweet, they are. But to me, I do not need to see the sex on the TV screen, and I often read smut here on A03, but I am asexual I know that. So I wrote this for me because someone I know keeps telling me it is a phase. I am almost 25, it is not a phase it is who I am. Don't tell people that, too, that it's a phase. If it is, then fine, they'll outgrow. If it isn't then you make them feel werid for the whole of their life. Don't tell people it's a phase.

It happened. Well it was bound to happen but he had thought that the kids Tama or even Cullen, her daddy dearest who she loved most of all--and he knew this because she had said it loudly at The Winter Palace--would be around to see and hear it. A boy had pushed a large bundle of bright weeds at her and said she looked pretty before running off. Maraas was with Orta, Sera, and Blackwall in the Emerald Graves. Dorian and Damien had been with him when it had happened. Cullen was stuck in his tower for the day, the addiction making him have the sweats and shivers. Abelas didn’t know that, she just thought he was a little sick and needed a nice, quiet day to rest. 

She looked at the weeds, to the spot the boy had been when he had shuffled toward her, and then down to the weeds again. She frowned and turned to them, a look of confusion on her face, “What do I do with them?” 

Damien smiled and Dorian covered his nose so as not to breath in the pollen of weeds, “You keep them and thank him for the flowers.” 

“Weeds.” Dorian corrected. 

Abelas looked at him, “Why did he give me flowers?” 

“Like he said, ‘cause he like you.” 

Abelas seemed to think for a moment, “Like how Tama and Baba like each other?” 

Bull thought of the large hickey he had seen on Maraas, the whole left side of her neck a dark bruised looking grey that seemed to throb with pain. And Cullen being careful when he sat down or had to bend, no doubt because of the claw marks still healing. He shook his head, and then nodded, since Abelas didn’t know that love could be like that. She only saw the tender kisses and sweet smiles and names of endearment. To her that was all love was. 

“Sort of.” he answered. 

Abelas did frown at this, and she handed Damien the weeds, “I don’t want that.” 

“Why not?” Dorian asked. 

“I don’t want the cuddles and kisses and flowers and hugging stuff like how you guys and Tama and Baba and Orta and Sera and Miss Josephine and Blackwall get. I don’t want that kind of love. It’s not what I want. I’m going to tell him no.” 

Bull had known women who had told a man no for their advances. He had seen their corpses too. He picked Abelas up and settled her on his hip, her little face set in determination. She was not a woman and that boy not a man. He might not even become a man like that. But the fear was there. Maraas had worried about it too often as they drank after dragon kills. 

He could see the world, had seen the world, and he could see the woman she would become. Stubborn like Maraas, and gentle in voice like Cullen. Driven by faith like Cullen, but held in check by logic and reason like Maraas. She would become a leader worth following. He sat down on one of the logs near the training grounds, holding her in his lap. Dorian and Damien hovered near them. 

“Explain it to me.” he said. 

Abelas seemed to think for a moment, and then answered, “I know what love is. I know I know what it is. But there is different kinds of love. Like I love you and Dorian,” she said and then Dorian gave a low chuckle and spoke. 

“Who doesn’t?” Dorian asked. Damien shushed him. 

“I love my family. I know I do. I love all of you and you love me, I hope you do anyway. But I know that love. It’s like the story about becoming real. The rabbit didn’t become real because the love was different, he became real because he was loved and he knew it. And he gave that love back.” 

“But?” Damien asked. 

“But the love you guys have isn't family love. Not really. It’s love love and love love means kids and houses and those things. I don’t want those things. I don’t kids. I don’t want a house and someone who will make me question things because we don’t agree on everything. I don’t want to love someone. I don’t feel love like that.” 

Damien spoke, “You’ve...never had a crush on a boy or girl your age, Abelas? Not even older than you maybe?” 

Abelas shook her head, “I know people can look pretty and then not pretty but pretty in their own way. But that doesn’t mean I have to like them like that back. I don’t want that love. I don’t,” she placed one hand over her heart and she looked to be in pain, “I don’t feel that. I don’t know what that kind of love it but I know I don’t want it.” 

Bull was going to have to tell Maraas when she got back, or Cullen if he could keep his focus for long enough. Under The Qun they had a set of words for people like Abelas. Born with no desire for sex or any feelings of physical attraction to another person. Only the need for a deep bond, a love of friendship and closeness. Carnal love wasn’t in people like her or Cole. A True Born Eunuch. The ideal of The Qun, but a goal not able to be realized. 

True Born Eunuchs were rare. Born only one in a hundred or something like that. The odds of being homosexual or even bisexual were higher than being born Eunuch. This was new. It was something that was first of all hard to describe to others and second of all hard to be understood. Sex was a cornerstone of the world. To be born with no desire or even deep seeded want to feel that, made others confused. He could see it on Dorian and Damien’s faces. 

To many it was a childish phase one could and would outgrow. Bull knew better. This was a state of being that was carved into the very bones and blood of the person born like this. Abelas would not grow out of this. She would never get a crush on man, woman, or anyone. She would make friends, love and cherish them deeply. Maybe even get close to another person, but the act of sex and love in the carnal sense was beyond her.

A world she could not see and touch, and even if she did, she would want no part of it. He sighed and rubbed the space between his horns before setting her down on the grass. 

“He’s a kid. Go easy on him, ok?” Bull asked. 

Abelas only nodded and then took off running to catch up to the boy who had given her weeds because they looked just as pretty as flowers. Puppy love. He rubbed at his face. 

“She’ll grow out of it.” Damien said. 

“Yes. She’ll find someone like Cullen and marry them. She flaunt them at parties and love them to little pieces.” Dorian said. 

Bull shook his head, “Maybe. But it won’t be like how you’re thinking. They get a kiss and a cuddle, but not much more than that, I don’t think.” 

“It’s just a phase.” 

“No. No it really isn’t.” he sighed. 


	6. Varric, the wise man(KINDA)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dwarves don't have mages, or magic. That Fade crap is more a story than any book he's ever written.

The kid liked to draw on the pages he was going to throw into the fire. She drew odd shapes and odd runes and little stick people with letters going to wrong directions. She had drawn everyone, even Hawke and Fenris with a little bundle between them because their kid had been born a few weeks ago. Hawke had sent a letter thanking them. Fenris had sent one with a Tevinter recipe for sweet bread. The kid had drawn Cullen and Maraas and her and Cullen had it tucked into his pocket. Varric had caught him sometimes taking it out and smiling down at it whenever Maraas and Abelas had to leave Skyhold. 

Today as he rubbed at his temples, Abelas sat across from him, drawing a careful line on the page, her rabbit sitting half fallen onto itself as it sat in front of her to the side. He watched for a moment, as the line was made with slight movements and careful strokes. So far it took up a whole page, one line going down the left hand side, another cutting from the right corner to the upper left. Another line made a perfect square and inside the square she was making a swirling shape that she put little crosses on at what seemed random intervals. He had asked Solas about it once, and he had only said that like him and Damien, she(now coming into her powers and trying to keep them under control, like all young mages), could walk the Fade and see things which had been lost for generations. She was drawing out what she saw because she did not know how to tell anyone what it was she had seen. Solas and Damien understood, they had seen many of the same things no doubt, but even they had trouble sometimes telling normal people about it. 

As she drew the careful lines he watched as she made them, her eyes glassy and gone. She wasn’t here. She was looking at whatever the hell it was that she, Solas, Damien and Hawke(bless that woman), could see. Dwarves didn’t get to see magic shit. They didn’t dream. They couldn’t do magic. Outliers in the mage vs everyone else debate. 

Her crayon broke and she looked at it for a long moment and then opened her hand, the crayon falling out of her tiny hands and down onto the table. He pushed another one toward her and she picked it up without even looking at him. He got a fresh page of paper and dipped his quill into the ink. 

“Hey,” he said and she looked right at him, eyes at half mast and looking like melting gold, “tell me what you see, Abelas.” 

She went back to looking at her drawings, “Before the next day dawned their journey to the Gold City was over. The marshes and the desert were behind them. Before them, darkling against a pallid sky, the great mountains reared their threatening heads. Upon the west of the Gold City marched a gloomy range of spirits, the mountains of shadows, and upon the north the broken peaks and barren ridges of Arlathan, grey as ash. But as these ranges approached one another, being indeed but parts of a great wall about the mournful plains, and the bitter inland sea of Falon’Din, they swung out long arms northward; and between these arms there was a deep valley. This was the Black Gate, the entrance to the land of the enemy. High cliffs lowered upon either side and thrust forward from its mouth two sheer hills, black-boned and bare. 

“The remains of a dragon, one of Mythals. Upon these bones stood the bare bones of a bridge which had once lead to the Gold City. In days long past they were built by the gifted ones, made by Ghilan’nain, they built it because of their pride and power. But their strength failed them and they were pushed back to a small island, and for many years the bridge was never taken care of and had fallen into despair.” 

Varric wrote it all down, pages upon pages of what she said. A great battle and a woman, sickly and tired, chosen to be a savior. Varric stopped for a moment and looked at Abelas. She kept drawing. 

“What was the lady's name?” 

“Which lady? There have been many women born to great things.” 

“The one who got chosen by,” he looked at his notes, “Fen’harel.” 

Abelas looked up and him and smile, “Her name was Andraste. She was a mage. She wanted to help people, and Fen’harel saw that in her, so he helped her. He only ever wanted to help. He just does a bad job at it is all.”

Varric nodded his head, “Most of us do fuck it up when we try to help.” 

“That’s ok. You have to mess up. You don’t learn anything by being right all the time.”


End file.
